Intolerance & Civil Liberties: Loss and Expansion of Liberty

1. Intolerance & Civil LibertiesRed = loss of liberty/intolerance Black = expansion of liberties/rights • 1791: Bill of Rights ratified • 1798: Alien & Sedition Acts • 1828: Andrew Jackson’s election begins era of expanding voting to the common man • 1848: Seneca Falls convention • 1853: Know Nothing Party • Civil War: suspension of Habeas Corpus • 1868: 14th Amendment (equal treatment clause) • 1870: 15th Amendment gives black men the vote • Reconstruction: black codes and Ku Klux Klan • End of 19th Century: literacy tests, poll taxes, residence requirements

2. Intolerance &Civil LibertiesRed = loss of liberty/intolerance Black = expansion of liberties/rights • 1917: Espionage Act, Sedition Act; affirmation in Schenck v U.S. • 1919: Red Scare • 1920: 19th Amendment gives women the vote • 1920s: Ku Klux Klan, Sacco & Vanzetti, Immigration act of 1924 • WWII: Japanese-American Internment; Korematsu decision • 1950s: McCarthyism • 1953-1969: Warren Court rulings • 1964: 24th Amendment outlaws the poll tax • 1965: Griswold v. Connecticut gives right to privacy • 1971: 26th Amendment lowers voting age to 18 • 1973: Roe v. Wade expands reproductive rights • 1989: Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (and 1991’s Casey v. Planned Parenthood) restricts reproductive rights • 2001: Sept. 11 attacks and the Patriot Act

3. Rise of Political Parties • 1792: Creation of first parties; split into Federalists & Democratic-Republicans • “The Bank”

4. Anti-federalistsvsFederalists • Poorer classes; Western; rural; farmers & frontier folk • State’s Rights devotees opposed the stronger federal government • Thomas Jefferson; Sam Adams, Patrick Henry & Richard Henry Lee • Alarmed by the lack of a Bill of Rights; Demanded one for Constitutional passage • The “Establishment”; East Coast; merchants & manufacturers; Wealthier; more educated • War & Shay’s Rebellion convinced them of need for more gov’t power • George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Madison • Promised a bill of rights by amendment

5. From two to one and back to two… • 1816: begin Era of Good feelings (Federalists fade away) • 1824: controversial election of John Quincy Adams splits country into Whigs and Democrats

6. Democratic-Republicans become Democrats and Whigs appear Democrats • Favor local rule & limited government • Free trade (low tariffs) • Equal economic opportunity (for white males) • Distrust of elite (bankers & industrialists especially) • Southerners, westerners, small farmers, urban workers Whigs (early 1830s to mid-1850s) • Favor Henry Clay’s American System (national bank, a high protective tariff, & federal funding of internal improvements) • Make moral issues part of policies: oppose immorality, vice & crime (some of which they blame on immigrants) • New Englanders & mid-Atlantic & upper-Mid-West; Protestants (of old-English heritage); middle-class urban professionals

7. Return to Two (or more) Political Parties • 1840-1854: Several third parties in response to immigration (American) and the lack of resolution to slavery (Liberty, Free Soil, Republican) • 1860: first electoral victory of modern Republican party (Whigs gone by now) • 1890s: Populists

8. Political Parties • 1900-1920: Progressives in both Democrat and Republican parties (brief Bull Moose Party) • 1936: Democrats become the new majority as a result of FDR’s new coalition (ends long era of Republican rule) • 1948: Dixiecrats • 1968: American Independent Party and realignment of the South (after Democrats pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act) • 1980/1994: Reagan’s election (1980) and Republicans retake Congress (1994) usher in the “New Right”

9. Political Parties • 1860-1932: Republican dominance of the presidency (only Democratic exceptions are Grover Cleveland & Woodrow Wilson) • 1932-1980: Democratic Dominance of the Presidency (only Republican exceptions are Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon; but is Jimmy Carter in 1976a fluke of Watergate?)